Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law

The Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law (CHRCL) is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that works to expand protections for immigrants, including children, survivors of crime and abuse, detained people, and other communities disproportionately impacted by systemic injustice. Since 1985, the Center has been a leader in immigrant rights impact litigation. Its small staff litigates cases with nationwide impact and provides training, consultation, and resources to practitioners and advocates in California and across the country.

THE CASE

• 2027

  Immigration Center for Women and Children (ICWC) v. Mullin, filed October 14, 2025 by CHRCL, Public Counsel, La Raza Centro Legal (LRCL), and The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), on behalf of ICWC, LRCL, CHIRLA, and California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ), challenges U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy guidance issued in early 2025. This policy allowed, for the first time in decades, the arrest, detention, and deportation of immigrant survivors of these violent crimes as a routine matter, without regard for the many protections Congress put in place for them. The lawsuit also challenges two unlawful practices that ICE implemented pursuant to this policy guidance. First, ICE now regularly imprisons and deports noncitizen survivors of human trafficking and crime who are lawfully in the United States pursuant to a grant of "deferred action" - formal authorization to remain lawfully in the United States for a set period of time - treating its enforcement actions as a de facto revocation of deferred action status without prior notice or opportunity to be heard. Second, ICE now routinely deports survivors of trafficking and crime who have pending applications for the U and T visas that Congress created specifically to protect them from deportation, without first conducting a statutorily mandated inquiry into whether they are prima facie eligible for those visas. 

  In May 2026, Plaintiffs won a preliminary ruling staying the three policies: (1) written guidance that permitted routine enforcement against survivors, (2) ICE’s policy of detaining and removing survivors with deferred action, and (3) ICE’s policy of removing survivors without review of their visa petitions. The order also required the return of three wrongfully deported plaintiffs. The preliminary order provides protection to the thousands of survivors waiting for their visas to be adjudicated.

GRANT AMOUNT
$20,000 (2027)

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